Vanilla Twilight
by FluorescentAdolescent3
Summary: A compilation of FioLee drabbles. Rating may change.
1. Love

**Love**

"Marshie," Fionna the Human whispers quietly to the companion beside her, her sapphire eyes glittering and glistening in the pale moonlight that washes over her face. "I have a question."

"Ask away." The cold blooded, blue skinned, rock star vampire responds.

Fionna sighs, faraway and dreamy-like as above her, the stars shift and sparkle. "What is love?"

Her friend whom is lying still beside her in a patch of sweet, green grass behind her tree house, overlooking the land of Aaa is none other than Marshall Lee the Vampire King. His inky black pupils move over the stars, dart from constellation to constellation. Beyond the hills, the Candy Kingdom is luminous, glowing pink and purple. Tucked away behind the trees, the Vampire Kingdom is dead silent – emphasis on dead.

"Honestly," He breathes, his breath mingling with the cool night air, swirling around his nose in puffs of white. "I don't know."

Fionna isn't satisfied with that answer, not one bit. She's an adventuress for Globs sakes, three word answers are just not going to cut it.

She wants details, descriptions, and an explanation. She wants reports, documents, facts, similes, metaphors and just cold hard evidence. And she's more than determined to get them.

She pushes a loose strand of golden hair behind her ear, the other hand struggling blindly to find Marshall Lee's hand in the darkness. When their flesh connect and their fingers lace, Fionna feels her heart beat quicken and her stomach inflate with butterflies.

She briefly wonders is Marshall Lee feels the same before she questions quietly, "Is this love?"

Unbeknownst to Fionna, the Vampire King's heart is knocking against his ribs, tattooing a pattern on his ribcage. He wants to smile, but then deems it uncool, and ever so nonchalantly grips Fionna's hand just a little tighter than she held his.

"No," He says, and behind him he can hear Cake making sounds of encouragement somewhere from within the tree house to an electronic video game that no doubt Beemo is probably screening. "This isn't love."

Marshall Lee silently hopes that she's talking about the hand-holding. Fionna isn't pleased.

"Is this love?" She tries again, shrugging out of the bulky sweater that Cake had knitted her because it was chilly outside, and then closing the gap that Marshall Lee had made sure was in between the pair, snuggles up close to him, wrapping her arms around his narrow waist.

Cold skin meets warm, and it feels like lightening in Marshall Lee's stomach. He's not exactly sure if he likes the feeling or not, but he doesn't have time to decide. Fionna just intruded his personal bubble.

"No." Marshall Lee swallows, lets out a breath or two before he continues. He's not sure how to handle himself, why is she making him so nervous? "I would describe it more as hugging. Maybe cuddling."

Around the pair, the woods crackle with life suddenly, and the moon above them shines a little brighter. Marshall Lee can feel a lone ant crawling around on his arm, but it doesn't bother him too much. He's much too distracted.

Fionna, being the brave adventuress she was born to be, is being just that – brave.

With a grunt of effort, she had ripped her hand-sewn bunny hat off her head and carelessly tossed it aside in a group of shrubs. With another grunt, she placed both hands on Marshall Lee's stone hard chest and wrapped both legs around his abdomen, straddling his hips nicely.

A jolt of electricity shoots up the vampire's spine, and he bites down on the dead flesh of his lip so hard he splits skin. He can't see the moon anymore, or even the stars. He just sees his best friend with her wavy golden locks spilling down her back, and her baby blues ablaze.

Fionna's fingers are like spiders, and they tickle his sides as they hover briefly over the hem of his T-shirt (the one that advertises his band) before sliding underneath the material all together. They pass over the surface of his stomach, and come to a halt at his chest.

"Is this love?"

"No." Marshall Lee strains, nearly moans, and shivers gently beneath Fionna's touch. "That's just teasing."

Fionna's giggle sounds like angels singing, and he mimics her movements, but keeping it PG by running his hands up the fuzzy material that makes up her shirt, bypassing her breasts, and coming to a stop at her shoulders. He gently flicks away a piece of hair, and she giggles again.

"So, tell me, Marshie. What is love?"

There are more sounds of technology and whines coming from the tree house, and there is a steady rustling of the bushes nearby. The pesky ant has found its way on Marshall Lee's neck somehow, but he doesn't care about any of those things. All he cares about is love.

"This is love." Marshall Lee whispers, leaning upwards into a sitting position, breath hot as he plants a single, sweet kiss on Fionna's nose, and it sends the blonde into chuckles again.

And even though he wasn't exactly sure what the definition of 'love' really was, he didn't mind exploring the word with Fionna.

Love is an adventure, after all.

* * *

_Hello. This is the beginning to a whole series of drabbles for FioLee. _

_Title is taken from the title of an Owl City song._

_Enjoy the cuteness. _

_-Ali _


	2. Memory

**Memory**

He remembers.

He remembers what it's like, to be in her arms. To feel the friction of her human skin brushed against his icy, living dead flesh. He remembers how, with silent feet and a stuffed animal under one arm, she would find her way in the dark and occupy the space in his bed that he had always promised was reserved for her.

He remembers her laugh, and the way it used to ring in his ears. He remembers when they decided it would be a smart idea to bake cookies in P.G.'s kitchen, and how he was the one who initiated the flour war, and they ended up dusting the place with white flakes. She had laughed so hard that day, so hard that she cried, and he knew he was doing something right.

He remembers her ears; small, rounded and perfectly perfect. The stem of a pink wildflower nestling nicely in between her hair line and curve of her right ear. That was when she had kissed him, that first time. That was when his heart had turned into a bright red balloon and nearly suffocated him from the outside.

He remembers her hair, which was the consistency of spun gold, and shone brighter than a thousand suns ever could. It fell down to her shoulders, but once it was so long that she tripped over it when she ran. Sometimes it was kept hidden from him, tucked away beneath the folds of a scruffy old hat that she adored.

He remembers her lips, and how they were carved into the shape of a kiss. The perfect kiss, the one that belonged to him and him only. That was what made it special, made it unique. Her lips were the most irresistible shade of pink, but once they were swollen and bloodied due to a bully in the Candy Kingdom whom had no better use of him time. He had taken care of that matter quickly, rewarding the jerk with a blow to the jaw and a purple black eye.

He remembers her eyes, all blue and wide and amazing. They glittered like diamonds, and were filled to the brim with beauty. They had seen bad things, and they had seen good things. Every day, when she looked at him, he prayed he was a good thing. He wanted to be a good thing. All his life, he was treated like a monster, an imposter in his own skin. She had treated him different.

He remembers the smell of her, and even in his own mind, it sounds perverted. But whenever she sat beside him, and her hair was still wet from the shower, she smelled of vanilla, sometimes lilac, sometimes lavender. She, herself, was a symphony of smells, a concerto of fragrances, if you will. It was one of the small things he could always look forward to.

He remembers the noises she used to make whenever kisses weren't enough, and hands just weren't cutting it. The first time, he was certain he had hurt her, had broken her. The second time, they were caught by Cake, and he still had the scars where she had clawed him to prove it. The third time was the charm, and it had been the best night of his life. It's a shame there was no fourth time.

He remembers the promises. The one about quitting smoking. The one about banning junk food from her diet. The one about, finding it somewhere deep inside him, befriending Cake. The one about growing up, maturing, and getting married. The last promise was never fulfilled.

He remembers the adventures.

The daily adventures that he and she took, the challenges they faced. The paths they crossed, the roads that they were so sure held danger beyond them, but walked anyway. It wasn't always easy, he remembers.

Marshall Lee rose from the damp ground, using the palms of his hands to brush away the grass and mud that had stuck to his pants. The sky above him is neutral, a calming grey that matches the color of his skin. A light rain has begun to fall, and he can already hear the first rumblings of thunder in the distance.

With one hand, he drags it across the stone one last time, the one with _Fionna _engraved across the top and he closes his eyes, and he makes one last promise, one last promise for her.

"I will always remember."


	3. Seeking Solace

**Seeking Solace**

He doesn't look up when the little silver bell hanging above the door jingles. He kind of expected it would happen sooner or later.

It's almost midnight, and practically everyone in Aaa is fast asleep, tucked away safely in their beds. And for the few who aren't, are most likely wandering around the deserted streets drunkenly, looking for that certain thing they didn't even know they were craving until now.

He's the only one working tonight (who in their right mind would take the midnight shift on a Saturday? This dummy, of course).

Manfried's Diner is almost like a sitting target on Saturday night for wasted partygoers, so as Marshall Lee uses an old rag to spit shine all the milkshake glasses, he isn't really surprised to have a late night visitor.

With his back to the door, he waits patiently for the drunken slur of an order, or a nasty comment about the blueish hue of his skin (it's a medical condition, get over it), you know, the usual. But it's silent behind him, and Marshall Lee senses danger and sharply turns on his heel.

She's sitting at the counter, strands of blonde hair matted to her forehead, blue eyes dark and hooded in the dimly lit room. Her bag is resting on the counter, and her hands are clasps together. She isn't smiling, but her cheeks are red.

"How long until your shift is over?" Fionna taps her freshly painted fingernails on the wood of the counter, using the pad of her index finger to swirl around little loose grains of sugar and salt.

Marshall Lee flicks his eyes upwards towards to the clock shaped like a cat (which is incredibly tacky, by the way, even for a low maintenance diner) on the far wall. "About an hour."

"Do you mind taking a break?" She swivels on the barstool, surveying the nonexistent rush hour of the diner. There's a lone man huddled around himself in a booth in the corner, and he's been nursing a cold cup of coffee for the past two hours. "Believe me, you won't be needed."

Draping the cleaning rag over his shoulder, Marshall Lee looks behind him and swiftly scans the kitchen just in case he forgot to tidy something up before he uses his upper body strength to hurtle himself over the counter top, landing on his feet. It's a trick he's been learning for months.

Fionna claps twice in amusement.

He takes a seat beside her at the counter, and she swivels around to face him. Outside, the world is bathed in darkness, and there's a mild wind blowing. It presses itself up against the front window of the diner, and slips like a deadly predator through cracks in the front door. Fionna pulls her jacket around her body tighter, she's wearing a dress underneath.

"I thought you had a date tonight. Shouldn't you be in the guy's apartment, smooching it up with him?" Marshall Lee says it lightly, as a joke, pouting his lips to imitate Fionna and some guy mid-make out, but she barely grins, so he stops. This might be more serious than he thought. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Fionna bites her bottom lip before she finally props her elbow on the counter so she could use the palm of her hand as a headrest. "Well, I showed up to the restaurant at eight, just as he had requested. And it was funny because, before I even went in, he texted me that he was on his way. He even put a little smiley face at the end."

Marshall Lee nods to show her that he's listening, and then there's movement behind him, and from his peripherals he watches his only customer of the night rise from the booth, discard his half empty coffee cup, and make a swift exit.

Fionna barely flinches. "So, I went inside, sat down, and I waited. Ten minutes go by, so I text him and ask him how close he his. No response. Twenty minutes go by, and I'm getting a little worried, you know? Yeah, so I call him, and he doesn't pick up. A half hour of waiting, and I'm really scared that something might've happened to him."

Outside, a car whizzes by at speeds that would probably get the driver arrested by any patrolling officer.

"Then, after forty five minutes of waiting, he finally shows up. He greets me, and we talk for a literal five minutes, before he tells me that he has a really important phone call to make, and I never see him again. I waited another half hour."

Inside his sternum, Marshall Lee feels something tighten. A switch is flipped, and his blood is red hot. She doesn't have to say it, he knows exactly where this is going. But she continues on anyway.

"He stood me up." Fionna finishes, exhaling hard. She flicks a wispy piece of golden hair away from her forehead, and pushes it behind her ear. "He showed up to dinner, got one look at me, and then took off. That's what happened."

"He's an ass." It's the first insult he can think of, the first thing his mouth will let him spit out. He frantically searches his mind for more profanities. "He's a fucking prick."

"No, he was being brutally honest." Fionna's eyes cast downwards, and her long eyelashes look like spiders on her cheeks. She distractedly begins to pick at her cuticles. "I'm so ugly he didn't even want to have dinner with me."

"Don't say that. Don't you dare." Marshall Lee is astounded that she would ever think such a thing. Sure, they were friends and had never been really romantically involved, but that didn't stop him from thinking she was utterly gorgeous.

He had always thought that about her, even from the first moment he laid eyes on her in the 8th grade. She was the new kid, and now one wanted to even speak to her because they belittled her for her good looks.

"Fionna the Human, you are beautiful in every way possible, andI pity the life of the man who thinks otherwise."

Fionna's eyes catch his, and a slow, sheepish smile spread across her lips. "You have to say that, you're my friend."

"No, I'm telling you because it's the truth."

"Thanks for trying to make me feel better, but I don't think it's going to work."

Her face is twisted up, her mouth is tight, and he's seen that look before. It was the same look on her face the time she spent hours and hours trying to bake cookies, but each time they came out of the over burnt and blackened. It was the same look she had when she was so sure she was getting a high grade on that science project, but was left with a D-.

It was her look of discouragement, of defeat, and it was a look that Marshall Lee hated with a fiery passion. He had to fix it. Undo the damage that was done.

"Well, then let's start your first date over again." He slides off his stool and then marches over to one of the vacant tables close by. He pulls out one of the chairs and motions for her to join him. "Hi, I'm Marshall Lee, and you look very beautiful tonight. Sit?"

"You're silly." Fionna smiles and it's a genuine smile, and after rolling her eyes she follows in Marshall Lee's footsteps and curtsies her thank you before taking her seat. Marshall Lee glides in across from her.

And the two friends sit there, just like that, no more than friends, while the wind whips, and partygoers drink their lives away.

Solace is found.


	4. Smile

**Smile**

"Do it."

"No." Fionna shrugs him away with a shake of her shoulders, purses her lips tighter, and buries her head farther in her hands. The tips of her ears are poking out from beneath her rabbit hat and they are bright red and heated.

"Fi, do it."

"I said no." Her tone is calm, but the ending drips with warning. She's mentally counting the seconds he has left before she totally flips her beans. She'd really rather not be bothered at the moment, but of course her thick-skulled vampire companion will not listen.

"Come on, please?"

"What part of 'no' do you not understand?!" She erupts like a volcano, , and she doesn't need a mirror to know that her face has gone tomato red.

Marshall Lee is hardly fazed, however, and continues to hover only inches away from her face, something that has always annoyed her for as long as he can remember. But if it will get her to stop being such a turtle and get back to her normal, adventurous self, well, then he'll just take that chance.

"Fi," He outstretches one hand and pokes her in the side. "Smile."

She swats him away without looking up. "I don't feel like it."

Around them, children are shrieking like wild banshees, running and charging, laughing and playing about merrily. There's a group of teachers not too far away from them, but they're too busy gossiping to realize that Fionna is hurt.

It's up to Marshall Lee to make it all better. He's always gotten A's in health class, this should be a piece of cake.

"C'mon, you know you want to."

"Stop, Marshall Lee."

_So stubborn_.

"You have a great smile." "Why would you wanna waste it, being all frowny and stuff?"

"Because I don't want to be all smiley." Two watery sapphire eyes peek out from Fionna's fringe, and she watches with a broken heart as, from across the school yard, a young boy with skin as pink as poppies balances on one knee and serenades a girl with hair that runs down her back like a chocolate waterfall. "Not when Gumball thinks I'm 'frumpy'."

Marshall Lee's top lip curls in sight of the bright blob of sugar in a sea full of beige and brown. He's never cared for the kid, especially when he marched into Miss Sunshine's classroom on the first day of school demanding everyone called him 'Prince' and referred to everyone else as 'peasants'. "What do you care what a stuck up sugar pop like him thinks, anyway?"

There's no response from the blonde girl, and just looking from Gumball, the pretty girl and Fionna repeatedly, it doesn't take him long to realize the problem. Touching both feet to the ground, he lets out a low sigh as his heart bumps in his chest.

"You like him, don't you?"

"It doesn't matter." Fionna has unfolded from her curled position and is wearing her bloodshot eyes like a badge of honor. She's using the pad of her finger to trace over the scribbly drawings of chalk on the asphalt. "He doesn't like me. I'm too 'frumpy' for him."

"Well, I don't think you're frumpy, Fi." Marshall Lee states, biting on the inside of his lip. He'd been waiting to say that for a while now, just to see how she'd react. If she'd feel the same way. "You know, if that counts for anything."

But it doesn't count for anything apparently, because Fionna falls silent again, casting her eyes downward in a look of defeat. But she flicks them upwards briefly back in the direction

On the inside, Marshall Lee is fuming. He couldn't believe someone could make his best friend feel this way. Why would anyone even want to? Fionna the Human is one of the greatest people he knows, and he's not just saying that because he has to.

He has to do something. He _has _to make it all better. He's gotta see that smile.

Curling both fists at his sides, Marshall Lee pulls his eyebrows down and draws out an angry breath to get his adrenaline pumping. He takes hasty steps across the playground before he is hovering directly behind the little 'prince'.

His heart is knocking hard against his ribcage, but he silences it with a quick thought of Fionna being upset because of the creep before him.

Swallowing, and to get Gumball's attention, he says, "Hey."

The candy boy turns, magenta orbs hard. The girl he was just swooning shoots Marshall Lee the same disgusted look. "Can I help you, peasant?"

"Yeah, Fionna asked me to deliver a message."

"Oh?" He crosses his arms over his shoulders, and raising a challenging brow. Some other kids have sensed the shift of tension in the air, and are standing behind the little 'prince', mimicking his stance. Of course they'd take his side. He's rich. "And what might that message be?"

It happens so fast, Marshall Lee barely has time to catch his breath. The next time he opens his eyes, Gumball is on the ground writhing and swearing, clutching his nose that is spewing red liquid that matches almost perfectly with his skin tone.

The surrounding children have all been put on pause, and their tiny mouths are opened, in the shape of an O. After a moment, they all snap out of their trances and fly across the pavement to the cluster of teachers, screaming their little heads off about how "Marshall Lee just socked Gumball dead in the nose!"

And as Miss Sunshine dragged him along while holding onto the fabric of his T-shirt, Marshall Lee looked over his shoulder, over all the heads of the nosy children, over to where Fionna is sitting and there it is.

It's small, at first. But then the kissable corners of her lips keep turning up and up and up, and she's smiling all big and white and beautiful.

Even though he's being hauled to his doom, Marshall Lee's chest warms up knowing that he actually did it. He made her smile.

_Smile, baby. Smile._


End file.
